An Aer Lingus pilot flying to China to collect vital medical equipment for Covid-19 frontline staff has told how he will be “locked into a metal tube” for nearly 30 hours.
Michael Griffin, 41, from Co Carlow kissed his five month old baby Emily goodbye on Tuesday morning before leaving for Beijing to collect millions of euro worth of protective personal equipment (PPE).
Before leaving, the new dad said: “It was a few weeks ago Aer Lingus told us that with the Covid-19 crisis happening the amount of flying we’d be doing would be reduced substantially and we all took an agreement to go part time and took a 50% pay cut.
“But then it became apparent there was a shortage of medical equipment.
“The union got onto the company and onto the HSE and said ‘look we’ve loads of spare pilots here at the moment’ and within a week then we developed a plan to get an aircraft from Dublin to Beijing.”
Michael told how there will be five pilots on the flight and he hopes to get a nap in while the aircraft is grounded while being packed with PPE.
He told KCLR Live: “We’re not going to be getting off the aircraft so we will have two pilots flying out and two fly back, with one to help facilitate rest on board.
“We literally land, it’s a nine and a half hour flight over, it will take four to six hours to load the cargo over there so we will wait in the aircraft.”
He said there will be very few seats free on the plane after it’s fully stocked before taking off for their 11 hour flight home.
His wife Marion Hayden told the Irish Mirror that her family is “so proud to be part of something that we beat as a country together.”
She said: “Your first instinct is to help where you can and I know that's exactly how Michael sees this.
“We will relax when EI9020 touches down Thursday evening and Emily has her daddy home until the next time.”
